What is a cookie?
A cookie is a harmless text file that is stored in your browser when you visit almost any website.
The utility of the cookie is for the website to be able to remember your visit againt the website. A lot of people do not know that cookies have been on use for at least 20 years, when the first browsers appeared to use the World Wide Web.
What is NOT a cookie?
It is not a virus, a Trojan, a worm, spam, spyware, and does not open pop-up windows.
What data does a cookie store?
The cookies usually do not store sensible data about you, like credit cards or bank information, photographs, personal IDs or personal information, etc. The data that cookies store are technical, personal preferences, content personalization, etc.
The web server is not associated to you as a person, but to your browser. In fact, if you usually browse with Internet Explore and try to browse in the same website with Firefox or Chrome, you will see that the website does not realize that you are the same person because is actually associated to the browser, not the person.
What kinds of cookies exist?
- Technical Cookies: are the more basic ones, and allow to know when is a browsing a human or an automatized application, if it is an anonymous user or a registered one, basic tasks for any dynamic to work properly.
- Analysis Cookies: they collect information about the kind of navigation that is going on, the most used sections, consulted products, usage time slots, language, etc.
- Publicity Cookies: they show advertising depending on your browsing, your country, language, etc.
What are own and third-party cookies?
Our own cookies are generated by the website you are visiting, and third-party cookies are generated by services or external providers as Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc.
What happens if I disable the cookies?
For you to understand the consequences to disable cookies, we will show you some examples:
- You will not be able to share contents from this website in Facebook, Twitter or any other social network.
- The website will not be able to adapt contents to your personal preferences, as it usually happens with online stores.
- You will not be able to enter the personal area of this website, like My account, My profile or My orders.
- Online stores: you will not be able realize online purchases, and will have to be through telephone or visiting the physical store if able to do so.
- You will not be able to personalize your geographical preferences like time zone, badge or language.
- The website will not be able to analyse the site about visitants and traffic, which will difficult to make a competitive website.
- You will not be able to write in the blog, nor upload images, publish comments, or rate contents spam.
- Advertising will not be shown sectorized, which will reduce the earnings through advertising for the website.
- All social networks use cookies, and if you disable you will not be able to use any social networ
Can you delete cookies?
Yes. Not only delete, but also block, in general use or in a specific website.
To delete cookies of a website, you have to go to the configuration of your browser and search for cookies associated to the website, and then proceed to its elimination.
Cookies configuration for the most popular browsers
Next we will show you how to access a specific cookie in the Chrome browser. Note: these steps can vary depending on the version of the browser:
- Go to Configuration or Preferences through the Archive menu or by clicking the personalization icon that appears in the top right.
- You will see different sections, and then click in the option Show advanced options.
- Go to Privacy, Content configuration.
- Select All the cookies and website data.
- A list will show up with all the cookies listed by domain. For you to make it easier to locate the cookies from a determined domain, introduce partially or totally the URL in the field Search for cookies.
- After applying this filter, it will show in screen one or multiple lines with the cookies of the solicited website. Now you only have to select it and push the X to proceed to its elimination.
To access to the configuration of cookies in Internet Explorer browser, follow this steps (can vary depending the version of the browser):
- Go to Tools, Internet options.
- Click in Privacy.
- Move the slider to select the level of privacy that you wish.
To access to the configuration of cookies in Firefox browser, follow this steps (can vary depending the version of the browser):
- Go to Options or Preferences depending on your operative system.
- Click in Privacy.
- In Browsing history, select Use a personalized configuration for the browsing history.
- Now you will see the option Accept cookies, where you can enable or disable it depending on your preferences.
To access to the configuration of cookies in Safari for OSX browser, follow this steps:
- Go to Preferences, Privacy.
- In there you will see the option Block cookies so you can adjust the kind of block you want to do.
To access to the configuration of cookies in Safari for iOS browser, follow this steps (can vary depending the version of the browser):
- Go to Settings, then Safari.
- Go to Privacy and Security,
you will see the option Block cookies so you can adjust the kind of block you want to do.
To access to the configuration of cookies in Android browser, follow this steps (can vary depending the version of the browser):
- Start the browser and then tap the Menu button, then Settings.
- Go to Security and Privacy, you will see the option Accept cookies so you can enable or disable it.
To access to the configuration of cookies in Windows Phone browser, follow this steps (can vary depending the version of the browser):
- Open Internet Explorer, and then tap More, then Configuration
- Now you can activate the box Enable cookies.